Tuesday, May 23

Lottery

Thankfully, not making the playoffs does give teams something to get excited about in the offseason - The Lottery.

It seems as if every day draft prognosticators have different guys wearing Sonic jerseys - assuming Seattle lands the #10 pick as expected. Among the people I've seen attributed to Seattle are Mardy Collins, Ronnie Brewer, and 100 other players.

A couple of tips:

1. Everybody is "long"2. Everybody has "exceptional quickness"3. Everybody "needs to work on defensive positioning"4. Everybody "reminds scouts of (insert player of same race and height here)"

With that in mind, I'm not adverse at all to Seattle dealing the pick + Danny Fortson to pickup something useful: a veteran center, perhaps?

The lottery will be starting at 4:30 pm tonight, West Coast time.

UPDATE: The lottery has ended. Bad News: The Sonics got the 10th pick. Good News: Portland dropped to fourth!

24 comments:

I think this is going to be the most interesting draft in a long time. You've got so much uncertainty at the top of the draft: can Thomas/Aldridge realize their potential, can Morrison score at the pro level, and so on. Plus, several of the teams at the top (the Bulls in particular) might not want to add another young player, so we could see several trades.

1. Brandon Roy (ain't happening).2. Randy Foye: shooting guard is the only spot I can see any rookie getting minutes next year, since we don't have a real backup for Ray. Foye's a good offensive player and is better on defense than Ronnie Brewer.3. Brewer: maybe more potential than Foye, he's got great (6'7") size.4. Marcus Williams: we might not have a role for him, but he's going to be a very nice pro.5. Rudy Gay: Another guy I doubt will last, and who doesn't really fit position-wise. But we could take a flier on him and let him sit most of the season.

I read today in the PI that Gelabale may not be coming to Seattle this year after all. Here's the paragraph:

"Also, [Seattle GM Rick] Sund said that 2005 second-round pick Mickael Gelabale has not committed to joining next year's team. His agent will meet with the Sonics next month, perhaps at the Orlando predraft camp."

Anonymous, you can also look through our archives for a story about Gelabale I wrote on April 7 of this year. He's a "long" (sorry) player capable of playing the 2 or 3, or even the point if an emergency arises. Like most guys from Europe we've seen recently, you can't categorize him as a particular position, but he would definitely help the Sonics next year as Allen's backup.

I'm actually cool with the fourth pick. That allows Portland brass the freedom to take the guy I want in the fist place: Black's homie Brandon Roy. Of course, he'll have to spend the first couple of weeks scrubing off the foul stench of huskie, but after that, he's going to make me very happy. Is it true that the Sonics are looking to draft a guy from Lichenstien?

You wrong big. Most here in P-Town think Martell is eventually going to move to SF, so adding Roy makes perfect sense. If it were two years ago, I'd say it would be almost certain that the Blazers would make the mistake of taking Morrison, but with Nate running the things, I don't think there's any way the Blazers take him. Hell, he might be available for you guys to take at ten!